The government on Wednesday announced that it would double its aman procurement from rice millers with the procurement scheduled to begin on November 15 at Tk 37 per kilogram.
Compared with last year, the government offered one taka more for buying a kilogram of rice, which is supplied only by rice millers.
This year the government set the target of procuring 6.5 lakh tonnes of aman by February 28, up from about 3.8 lakh tonnes of aman bought last year, according to a press release sent by the food ministry.
Additionally, the government decided to buy 2 lakh tonnes of aman paddy from farmers at the same price of Tk 26 per kilogram with which it bought 6.27 lakh tonnes of aman paddy last year.
‘The price offered to farmers is really low given that they spent about Tk 26 for growing per kilogram of paddy this year,’ agriculture minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque told New Age.
He said that the government could not offer more to farmers for it could make rice market unstable but was certain that farmers would get a better price selling their paddy in the market.
‘Aman production is likely to fall this year which would increase the market price, to the benefit of the farmers,’ said Razzaque, who attended the meeting that set the aman prices and the procurement targets.
No one from the food ministry, neither the minister nor the secretary nor the directorate general of food director general could be reached for comments.
Aman growers suffered immensely this year with four waves of monsoon flood affecting its production from June till mid-October.
Some of the farmers lost everything trying to grow aman as they failed to succeed even after making their third attempt at growing it.
Some farmers planted aman far later than it should have been planted, although they were aware that delayed planting would cut their production.
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute agricultural economists predicted that the aman production could fall by 15 per cent.
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies professorial fellow Asaduzzaman said that the government was clearly aware that farmers would not sell paddy to it at the price it fixed.
‘The government is more interested in buying rice from rice millers,’ said Asad.
While the coronavirus crisis is creating new poor, the decision to leave almost all rice produced in the country with millers might prove wrong in future, said Asad.
‘The government might need to feed many people in future and it might not be easy to find enough rice supplies in time,’ said Asad.
BRRI agricultural economists already said that most of the bumper production that Bangladesh had in boro rice ended up with rice millers or wholesalers or retailers.
They said that only 2 per cent farmers could have retained a tiny stock of boro rice.
Bangladesh had over 2 crore tonnes of boro but the government failed to meet its target of collecting only 2.1 million tonnes during the boro procurement season that ended in mid-September.
The government could buy only about 9 lakh tonnes of boro. The government rice stock was depleting and stood at 7.90 lakh tonnes on October 27.
Agricultural economists find it necessary that the government stock contains at least 1.3 million tonnes.
The food ministry officials however are not worried much and said that they always have the option to import rice if things get out of hand.
The aman paddy procurement would begin on November 7 and continue till the end of February.
The amount of rice targeted to be bought from rice millers included 50,000 tonnes non-boiled rice to be bought at Tk 36 per kilogram.
